When will Ford make an announcement on possible investment in Windsor? Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst at IHS Automotive, said the engines that could be destined for Windsor are currently in production. “These engines are produced globally and Ford has some flexibility in terms of supply,” said Brinley. “They already know how to build the engine and it would be a matter of transferring knowledge to Canada. ”

A 1.5-litre, three-cylinder engine is expected to go into the 2017 next generation Fiesta, as well as the Escape, Fusion and Focus, said Brinley.

Production of these engines is expected to reach about two million globally by 2020, she said.

Since launching in 1976, Fiesta sales have exceeded 16 million units worldwide. The Fiesta has been manufactured in Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, China, India, Taiwan, Thailand, and South Africa.

Ford is expected to shift Fiesta production from Mexico to Brazil. It has announced that its plant in Cologne, Germany will be the sole source for the European market.

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Since news surfaced this week of a possible major investment in Ford’s Windsor operations, ripples of anticipation have been percolating through the midnight shift at Essex Engine Plant.

“It’s great to hear,” said Brett Dunne, a production worker at Essex, one of two Windsor facilities that build engines for the automaker.

“We still have a lot of people on layoff. It could help bring them back.”

Dunne is resigned to the “give and take” stance of automakers dangling multimillion-dollar investments in front of jobs-hungry unions and governments.

“That’s the way corporate America works,” he said.

Ford is keeping mum, but Unifor Local 200, which represents about 1,300 hourly workers and more than 400 on layoff, said Windsor is competing with Mexico for assembly of 1.5 and 1.6 litre engines destined for such vehicles as the next generation Ford Fiesta.

The investment, reportedly exceeding $1.5 billion, could mean additional jobs ranging from 400 to 1,000 and establish the Windsor operation as a global producer of smaller, fuel-efficient engines. Currently, the Windsor and Essex Engine plants assemble larger, 5.0 and 5.4 litre engines for the North American market.

The union won’t be the only well from which Ford will be drawing cost savings. Taxpayers also will be expected to pony up economic incentives in the form of everything from grants and low-interest loans to covering the cost of training and infrastructure.

As auto companies operate globally, they aggressively seek out government economic packages, which, in the case of the southern U.S., can cover at least 50 per cent of a carmaker’s total investment.

“Ideologically, you can be against it,” said Dwight Duncan, former Ontario finance minister. “But the fact is, it happens everywhere. It would be plum dumb not to be at the table because these jobs are going to go somewhere.”

The competition for auto jobs and investment, said Duncan, has been waged for as long as he can remember.

Liberal MPP for Windsor-Tecumseh from 1995-2013, Duncan was a high schooler in 1981 when Ford chose Windsor over Lima, Ohio, for a new engine plant that would be located in the city’s east end.

“The E.C. Row expressway got finished to Lauzon Parkway because of the Essex Engine plant,” said Duncan. “That was part of the deal struck with Ontario and the federal government.”

Fast forward to 2008 when Ottawa and Ontario contributed almost $100 million toward the re-opening of the Essex Engine plant, which had been mothballed by Ford a year earlier.

The plant’s resurrection was helped, in part, by the fact that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was days away from calling an election. As well, Windsor was flush with senior government representatives at Queen’s Park — a political advantage that helped push the deal forward, said Duncan.

“Governments don’t want to be seen as losing jobs in areas where they have seats,” he said. “Over the course of my tenure in government where I had dealings directly with companies interested in doing business in Windsor, I was able to make sure everything stayed at the top of everyone’s in-basket.”

Currently, Windsor lacks a government seat in both, Ottawa and Queen’s Park. But this new political reality does not doom the Ford talks, said Lydia Miljan, political scientist at the University of Windsor.

The Harper and Kathleen Wynne governments “are strongly motivated,” said Miljan. “Windsor is on their radar, either as an area that will help them politically in the future or to prove Wynne’s claim that she hasn’t forgotten about Windsor.”

Any success “helps them in the overall narrative that they are in favour of economic development and promoting the well-being of all citizens.”

With both levels of government apparently willing to play ball with Ford, it leaves the union to come to the table with its own offerings, which could include relaxed work rules and contract language. Union leaders were quick to assure members, who’ve been without a wage hike for almost a decade, that they would be consulted. “No unilateral decisions will be made,” said Local 200 president Chris Taylor.

Ford could be making some hefty demands. In June, the automaker announced a productivity deal with its German union to keep Fiesta production at its plant in Cologne. The deal, which will run through to 2021 and covers more than 24,000 employees in Germany, is expected to yield at least $400 million in savings. The union agreed to more flexible working hours and work days to allow the plant to efficiently align production with demand, Ford said.

For Dunne, the hope is any givebacks will be outweighed by the expansion of jobs and production in this country.

“The company will want to open up the contract,” he said. “I just hope the demands aren’t drastic.”

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